mrinal

"The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next." - Henry Ward Beecher

Getting old shouldn't be viewed as inevitable, just because it happens to everyone. It's a disease that kills over 100,000 people a day, and hopefully it will be optional in the future.

“Emotion commits the crime and then logic does the cover-up.” - Shaan Puri, @ShaanVP

“Quite revealing of human preferences that more suicides come from shame or loss of financial and social status than medical diagnoses.” - Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

there’s a billion dollars hidden inside your laptop, you just have to hit the right keys.

The conception of the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE): “Shyam extrapolated this idea into the proposition that Palantir shouldn’t have engineers building a product in Palo Alto and sales people selling it in Virginia, but instead “forward deploy” engineers to potential clients to adjust the spec on-site and then send reports on the experience back to Palo Alto, where the home engineers could use the feedback to build not an out-of-the-box product, but a bricolage that could be recustomized for each client.”

the things that have had the greatest impact on my life are books and YouTube.

A newly published paper found pronatal policies only worked when supported by culture. "Maternity benefits increased fertility only among women who grew up in religious families" in the Baltics. This could explain why many pronatal policies have not boosted fertility more. 🧵.

Jeff Bezos to retailers: “Your margin is my opportunity.” AI to humans: “Your inefficiency is my opportunity.”

“For China to meaningfully replace the dollar, it would need to run current account deficits or allow massive foreign capital inflows. Neither is politically or economically viable. In other words, while China wants to run large trade surpluses while parking its excess savings in safe, liquid assets, this strategy requires another large and stable economy willing to absorb its surpluses. Similarly, the EU’s economic model is also reliant on trade surpluses absorbed by the US, and there are no indications that it plans to reverse course. In short, RMB or euro internationalization will be constrained by both economies’ growth models.”

blockchain can make entropy within organizations impossible.

combo of rene gerard’s mimetic theory (popularized by peter thiel) and the ‘leverage’ and ‘specific knowledge’ ideas from the almanack of naval ravikant @EricJorgenson @naval

when you're competing in a pool of a lot of people, assume someone is gonna run a million circles around you. don't believe for a second that you'll win. someone is likely smarter, more knowledgeable, and has some other comparative advantage you didn't know existed. you cannot win. this person will cook you. instead, pause. take a step back. look within. write and journal. learn about yourself and what excites you. read textbooks, utilize AI, and talk to smart people. capitalize on your unique experiences. if you don’t have any, create these experiences by following your curiosity. write, code, and read. grow your skills and expertise. find the areas where you have a competitive advantage. monopolize and dominate. there should be no one who’ll imagine competing with you. be so good nobody will ignore you. stick out. be unique and be the only.

trad swe > highly technical > deeply understands code > assigned work by PM > task oriented modern swe > mini chief of staff > deeply understands product + systems > spot checks agent implementation > manages partner integrations > revenue-focused